


Mistakes

by chasing_the_sterek



Series: Snow-Filled Footsteps [2]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, But Manny is a Big Shit, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jack Frost is a Little Shit, Jack Has Issues, Manipulation, MiM is evil, Self-Esteem Issues, The Guardians love Jack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 12:59:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5497883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasing_the_sterek/pseuds/chasing_the_sterek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Manny wants Jack gone, the guardians want Jack to stay, and Jack keeps accidentally eavesdropping at the wrong moments and therefore gets seriously mixed messages.</p>
<p>Or: the one where the man in the moon is a major loser and nobody really liked him anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Private Messages

**Author's Note:**

> The far angstier Mistakes. Viola.

_And Daddy don't like you_  
But Daddy and I never speak  
**\- Roses; James Arthur, Emeli Sandé  
**

Tooth was angry. No, that wasn't an intense enough feeling - Tooth was absolutely furious. They'd recruited a new member, a new guardian, who was worthy of the title, and, as soon as the battle with Pitch was over, Manny wanted them to just _ditch_ him?

If MiM thought that was going to happen, then he had another think coming. There was no way they were going to let Jack slip back into loneliness; they didn't even want to imagine what it would do to him if he was alone for three hundred years and, just when he was this close to having friends, to having a family, it got snatched away from him. Manny knew it would drive them crazy - what about someone was desperate for believers, for people who trusted him and were nice to him and loved him? For someone who wanted all that, the three days they'd spent with the other guardians must be a luxury, a privilege, a dream come true.

On that train of thought. . . what if Jack thought that all of this was a dream? What if he expected the guardians to do as Manny was ordering, and revoke his guardianship and stop interacting with him?

Tooth paused in her glaring at the moon and glanced worriedly at their newest comrade. He was hunched in on himself even as he teased Bunny about his fear of the sleigh; she was pretty sure he was psyching himself up for the North Pole, and whatever he thought was going to happen there.

Tooth looked at the moon again. It leered down at her, its previously comfortingly serene face now looking detached and superior and uncaring. You can't disobey me, guardian, it seemed to say, and the usually calm guardian tried to squash the urge to punch something. She'd already punched Pitch in the face (knocking out a tooth; she was pretty proud of herself, if she had to admit it), exceeding her usual yearly quota of punches, and now she wanted to punch something else? North must be rubbing off on her. . .

She glimpsed a flicker in Jack's expression: his cheeky grin faltered as Bunny's attention was taken off of him by the bumpiness of the sleigh ride. The winter spirit's mouth tightened into a grimace; his eyes dulled until they were distant and hurt and resigned; his shoulders slumped dramatically.

Tooth's eyes narrowed. She transferred her gaze back to the moon - he stared right back at her, haughty and proud, and she felt a wave of loathing swell up inside of her. What would happen if he went crazy? she asked him silently, somewhat dreading the answer. What happens if he sides with Pitch, or some other evil spirit?  
_  
If he proves to be a problem,_ he answered, _then I will eliminate him accordingly. I refuse to let him be troublesome any longer._

Her eyes narrowed further. He'd said that without hesitation. There had been no pause in his words, no hesitation or trace of guilt; he was anticipating 'eliminating' Jack, she realized with a suppressed growl; he couldn't wait to exercise his fancy powers and murder a perfectly good spirit (better than some others Tooth could mention) for no reason other than because he could.

I won't let you, she answered him mentally as they landed the sleigh. Everyone traipsed inside, following North as he exclaimed about cookies and celebrations and "Well done, Jack!". Tooth hung back for a moment, still watching the moon and addressing him in her head. I won't let you kill Jack just because of some petty reason. You don't have that much power over me.

She turned her back on the moon and flew inside. She didn't look back.

@#£%&**&%£#@

Bunny was seething. He was having one of the angriest moments he'd ever had in his life, and he couldn't punch anything because if he stood up in this stupid, flimsy wooden box North called transport he was going to throw up, and if he punched anything from this position he'd either break his wrist or Jack's nose. As tempting as the latter option was, he didn't want to hurt the kid (MiM, he never thought he'd say that of all things), and he didn't want to give Manny any ideas. He was already asking the guardians to kick Jack off the team; how far of a stretch was it to go from that to 'just punch him and abuse him to death, and I'll make sure he never comes back'?

Bunny felt the sleigh rock underneath him, and his attention drifted to making sure he didn't get to see his breakfast again.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tooth go from looking at the moon - wait, was she glaring? Oh, crikey, Manny's in for it - to looking over his head, at Jack, and he briefly wondered what was wrong with the kid as her expression went from anger to concern before her eyes flicked back to the moon and her hard expression set again. He let the nausea fade before he shot a glare up at the winter spirit as the kid grinned at him and asked if his skin was green underneath all that fur.  
_  
You see, Aster?_ the moon hummed. _He is only an annoyance. Get him out of the guardians, and you'll never see him ag -_

Yeah, Bunny interrupted, somehow managing to sound civil and polite even as he clenched his fists. If he didn't keep his anger under wraps he was going to destroy the sleigh. . . 'Cause you'll make him an outcast.  
_  
Oh, I'll do better than that,_ Manny said smugly.

Bunny felt himself freeze. Surely. . . Manny wasn't going to kill Jack, was he. . . ?  
__  
On point as always, Bunnymund, MiM smiled. _So, will you help me? All you have to do is revoke his guardianship._  
  
No, Bunny told him and his voice sounded decisive even in his head. I won't help you. Sorry, but I'm not hurting any spirits on some stupid whim of yours.  
__  
Very well, Manny said stiffly. _But do not expect me to be nice to you or anyone on your side._  
  
If you were nice, Bunny retorted, then _you'd_ need saving.

He jumped out of the sleigh before it had even landed properly and ran inside.

@#£%&**&%£#@

Sandy was similarly livid. Despite the fact that he was a normally well-mannered and calm spirit, he felt the anger fill him up. The sand that made up his robe twisted and almost unnoticeably made the garment spikier and harsher.

His muteness was annoying at times, but had awarded him a talent at reading body languages and facial expressions and the like; he could tell with ease that the other guardians (minus Jack) had received a similar message to his; their faces tensed with anger and their shoulders hunched with pent-up emotions. He closed his eyes and breathed, aware of the dreamsand robes loosening slightly (but not all the way - but Sandy would have been surprised if they had. He was still very, very angry, and his sand always subtly reflected his emotions in texture).

The guardian of dreams watched Jack's face. The winter spirit was talking to Bunny, who was looking more than a little annoyed (though, contrary to what the first glimpse told you, not at Jack). Tooth was watching the moon with an uncharacteristically angry look on her face, and North had his back turned to everyone (but his fur-covered shoulders were stiff and angry) as he drove the sleigh. But Jack's posture and facial expression were completely devoid of anger and frustration; instead, he seemed to have broken, his shoulders more slumped and defeated than they should be and his eyes hurt and careful and distrusting.

Evidently, the spirit had not been exempt from the messages from Manny - his was just a little different from theirs. Where theirs was a suggestion, it seemed his was a taunt, a lying whisper that told horrific untruths that made him doubt his own abilities and strengths and other's trustworthiness.

Not for the first time that month, Sandy wished he could speak. He wanted to tell Jack that it was all false, that they weren't going to throw him out, especially if he had anything to do with it; he wanted to say that Jack was stronger than he thought he was; he wanted to shout at Jack to ignore the moon, because if Manny hadn't given Jack any helpful advice or true information (bar his name) then he wasn't exactly about to start now.

But he couldn't.

Because he couldn't speak.  
__  
Do not be so harsh on me, Sanderson. MiM said. _All I want to do is to remove this pesky youngster from your group. Will you allow me to do that?_  
_  
That's not all you'll do,_ Sandy hissed, projecting his own thoughts into Manny's head, just like Manny was into his. _I'm not stupid, MiM, and I know you better than you think._

 _We are old friends, are we not? You fell from the same skies I inhabit at this very moment._ MiM replied smoothly.  
_  
We are,_ Sandy allowed. _But no longer. You have overstepped the mark, old friend. I no longer want to even be acquaintances._

 _That's a harsh punishment, Sanderson._ Manny warned. _Especially for one as pure and innocent as I._

 _You're as pure as mud,_ Sandy told him, _and as innocent as someone in a prison cell. Do not try and fool me with your pretty words._

 _You do not want to see my bad side._ Manny growled.  
_  
Nor you mine._ Sandy snarled. _Begone, stranger._

Sandy could tell that the man in the moon was scowling as he climbed out of the sleigh and followed Bunny and Jack inside.

@#£%&**&%£#@

North let himself scowl as he tightened his grip on the reins. Nobody could see the facial evidence of his fury anyway; they were in the back of the sleigh, and he the front.

He shot a heavy glare at Manny, but didn't say anything. He couldn't put into words the anger or the irritation he currently felt towards MiM, but if he could, it would contain a lot of colourful language in Russian. There was no way he expected them to just let Jack go that easily, right? Not after the spirit's three hundred years of solitude? Not after North had started feeling fatherly again?  
_  
You should not get attached so easily._ Manny murmured into the Russia's mind. _I've told you this before. Such attachments to your comrades only serves as weaknesses in battle._

And _I_ told _you,_ Manny, North rumbled. Life is not battle. Life is life and joy and wonder and dreams and hope and memories. Life needs love, da?  
_  
No, it does not._ Manny said with a sort of frustrated exasperation. _Life is not a fairytale, North, contrary to what you seem to think. Life is a struggle; you need to think of battle strategies. Besides, that spirit is not worthy of your 'fatherly emotions', as you put it. He is dangerous and unstable._

He is no such thing, North said, affronted. He is Jack, and Jack is strong and brave and capable.  
_  
You would do well to remove his guardianship._ Manny was undeterred. _He doesn't need it any more. He himself is not needed any more._

So Jack is disposable? North shot back, his anger rising as he spotted the sleigh ramp and angled the reindeer towards it. I do not agree.  
_  
Disposable, hmm. . . ?_ Manny mused. _I suppose that's one way to put it. Yes - he has been used, and now we need to dispose of him._

North watched the moon warily as he landed the sleigh. Dispose? No, Jack is not disposable. I will not let you kill Jack.  
__  
On your head be it, Manny said crossly, and an ominously dark cloud covered the moon. Thunder rumbled in the distance.  
**  
**@#£% &**&%£#@  
  
And if none of the original guardians ever spoke to Manny again, then nobody ever really mentioned it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, [this is my tumblr if you want it.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/total-master-of-geekiness)


	2. Spinning Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's inside Jack's head, filling it with truth, pulling covers off of things and showing Jack things he'd never thought about.
> 
> Or: the one where Manny is a sick bastard and only Jack believes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second instalment.
> 
> DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNNNN

Jack had always assumed that Manny would forever be the good guy.

Apparently, like with tons of other stuff he didn't feel like mentioning, he had been wrong about that.

He'd thought that Manny would never become corrupted by evil - he'd believed that the moon was unreachable, untaintable, pure in spirit and heart and omnipresent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient.

He'd been wrong about that too.

Or maybe he _wasn't_ wrong.

Maybe MiM had been right, and Jack didn't deserve to be on the team. Maybe _Jack_ was the one tainted by Pitch, like Manny had said, and his point of view was warped by evil and biased by terrible deeds.

Yes, that was probably it.

Jack Frost wasn't supposed to be kind and warm and friendly anyway. He was winter, and winter killed people. Winter caused crippling injuries. He wasn't meant for a family. He wasn't meant for believers. He wasn't meant for friends.

He was winter, and winter would always, always, be alone.

He'd accepted that long ago.

But he'd thought - if just for a moment - that joining the guardians would change that. He could have friends, believers, people who could see him and speak to him and interact with him. For three days, three whole days (despite Pitch's insistence on ruling with fear), life was pretty sweet.

But then Manny had spoken to him.

After three hundred years of being ignored, of being shunned, the one thing Manny says to him that isn't a grand _'you are Jack Frost'_ announcement is when he tells Jack that the guardians are going to start giving him the cold shoulder and turning a blind eye when Bunny drop-kicks him out of the window and the team at the same time.  
__  
It's true, Jack, Manny purred into Jack's mind. _Everything you just thought. They truly don't need you. You're tainted. Evil. Twisted. How can you protect all of the children then you can't protect one? You're weak, Jack, and your kind of weakness never grows stronger no matter how many believers you scrape off of the gutter -_  
  
Hey! Jack thought, trying to direct the flow of his thoughts to the moon. Jamie didn't come from the gutter! He was the last light. He kept the belief alive. More than you did, Jack added quietly, trying not to let Manny hear.

Manny heard.  
__  
Oh? And you, the mighty Jack Frost, did better? The most you did was freeze a couple of things and mess everything up more. You even abandoned the Sandman - you practically killed him with your bare hands!  
  
Jack hung his head slightly, letting his face twist into pain as his absent conversation with Bunny stopped momentarily. I didn't mean to, he said mentally.  
_  
You're pathetic._ MiM sneered. _No wonder they don't want you._

Do they? The winter spirit felt himself asking quietly, feeling childlike as soon as he thought the words. Do they really not want me?  
__  
Truly, they do not. The moon's face seemed to loom over Jack, staring him down as if waiting for him to explode. _They all think you're a ticking time bomb, Jack. Tooth only loves you for your teeth. Bunny hates you with every bit of his soul. North pity-loves you. Sandy blames you for his death. You're not needed. You're not wanted. Why not accept the facts and leave ahead of being asked?_  
  
Manny's voice was now sickly sweet and patronizingly over-understanding. If the other spirit had had a physical form, Jack mused, then at the moment they would probably be startlingly similar to that toad lady in Jamie's film about wihards and moogles (wasn't it called something like List of the Firebird?) - Dobbles Umbadge, right?  
_  
Look at how easily distracted you are,_ Manny scoffed. _You are nothing more than a child._

Jack slunk inside North's workshop once the sleigh had landed, seeking refuge in the shadows and avoiding the rays of moonlight that drifted in through the windows. Excusing himself quietly, he slipped away to the guest room he'd secretly stashed his tooth box in and pried one of the floorboards up, taking the golden cylinder out before letting the plank slam back into place. He replaced the screws in record time, afterwards managing to sneak up behind the guardians and soundlessly place it on the table by the doorway.

"- he says Jack is not worthy of us, that he does not deserve love we have 'allowed' him." North rumbled, and Jack automatically figured that he was translating a particularly obscure set of Sandy's symbols for the other guardians.

"So what's he trying to say? Bunny?" Tooth asked frantically, and the low buzzing of her wings increased as she raced around in the air.

"Don'cha look a' me, mate. I ent sayin' nothin', else I'll wanna jump up an' slap tha' stupid idiot in tha shnoz."

A gasp. "Bunny!"

"What? S'true. 'E's a self-lovin', selfish ba -"

Jack quietly vanished, not wanting to hear any more.

He went back to his room (he didn't have one), packed up his belongings (he didn't own any), said a teary goodbye to his family (he didn't deserve one), and left.

He looked back.

A lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noticeably shorter than the last chapter, but then again the last one did have four different people speaking and this one had just Jack.
> 
> Kudos if you guesses what film Jack was thinking about XD


	3. A Serious Lack Of Self-Esteem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack goes to Antarctica.
> 
> For some reason he feels safe there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The third chapter of Mistakes. . . I hope someone's actually enjoying this. Maybe I'm just spinning my woeful tale to an empty void. . .
> 
> :(

Jack goes to Antarctica.

He lands a little unsteadily - tears don't exactly help you make a calculated landing - and uses his staff to stay on his feet, looking around. He spots something through the blizzard and the watery haze that looks familiar and stumbles towards it. He decides not to dwell on just how much he's using the wind for support.

It turns out that he'd seen the gigantic ice/black sand sculpture (of sorts), and he takes a few steps back in surprise. Surely it wasn't _that_ big when he and Pitch had first made it - was it?

Jack rewinds through his memories to that point, only to discover that he didn't really look: too caught up in fighting the boogeyman to pay much attention to the height of the sand-ice spikes in the background.

The spirit rubs his stomach absently, feeling the ghost pain of his staff being snapped. It was like his spine was ripped in two, like his very soul had been torn into two pieces.

Jack wanders over to where he thinks the chasm he'd been thrown into is. It's a surprisingly long distance away, actually. Just goes to show how strong Pitch was, and how over his head Jack was.

Manny's right.

He doesn't belong. To the guardians, to his friends, to the earth, even - seriously, have you ever heard of a spirit who hasn't been believed in for three hundred years who's still alive?

No, you haven't, because everyone else who wasn't believed in for more than fifty years eventually just withered away and died.

But Jack. . . he's an abomination, like Manny said. He's unnatural, even to the unnatural. A freak among freaks. A rarity among rarities.  
 _  
Not welcome.  
_  
Jack kneels silently, still grasping his staff tightly. He doesn't want to let go of it here, near the ice spikes he and Pitch made only a day ago - the memories of it being snapped are too strong in this area. He doesn't think he can meld the two ends together again.

"C'mon, Frost," Jack grunts, heaving himself up from where he's (at some point) collapsed sideways onto the ground. "Gotta move if you want to lie around and be useless. Might as well feel safe too, huh?"

He shakes his head. Now he's talking to himself? A couple of years ago that was known as being the first symptom of craziness, followed by growing hair on your palms and then looking for it. He'd seen it written on posters in shop windows and heard it said when he eavesdropped on groups.

Jack wonders if those three symptoms are still going around. Maybe he'll ask Jamie.

If Jamie still believes.

Jack remembers his question - _do you stop believing in the moon when the sun comes up?_ \- and sighs. He doesn't even know if this is all a dream or not. It feels like one - swashbuckling adventures (but less of the swashbuckling and more of the staffwielding), strange enemies, protecting young children, making friends, finding a family, remembering his past life, being believed in. It feels like he'll wake up in his tree at any moment, sad and alone, and he won't be surprised at all.

Jack pinches himself, sure he'll wake up.

He doesn't.

Jack does it again, and again, and again, but each time he does he just gets more and more panicked because _this isn't a dream._

The winter spirit shakes his head and struggles on, the wind pushing at his back encouragingly. He's made it past the ice-sand sculpture thing, but he suddenly remembers that the only thing there is ocean and sporadic glaciers, and he has to turn back.  
 **  
@#£% &**&%£#@  
**  
There aren't many things Jack excels at, and most of those aren't through any effort of his at all.

Tolerating cold is one of them. He's the spirit of winter - if he couldn't it would be pretty stupid, and he'd be in a really stick situation 90% of the time.

Making people laugh is another, but not through wit or being funny - his snow makes children and adults alike laugh delightedly, if they like the snow.

The third (and final, in Jack's opinion) is coping. He coped with not knowing anything in the first few years of his life - remembering how to walk, how to speak; both things that, if he thought about too hard about, he wouldn't remember how to do at all. He coped with being lonely for three hundred years - and, granted, maybe he didn't cope with that little problem as well as he could have done, but cope he did, and he's still here now, right?

Anyway, another thing Jack's kinda good at is making things (he used to steal craft supplies and sew up holes in his hoodie, and once he made a small doll for a little girl whose parents forgot to buy anything for her for Christmas.

Jack's hands hurt. He turns them over and sees that the palms are red, raw, and bleeding. He guesses it's from the rough ice, but he keeps carving away at it with his hands anyway.

He doesn't touch his staff. It lies a meter away, easily within reach, but he doesn't want to use it to make things easier. He wants to let emotion fuel the little underground network he's intending to build, and if his hands fall off in the meantime then so be it. Ice slows bleeding and speeds up clotting anyway (as he's discovered).

Jack grits his teeth, ignoring the feeling of his skin parting as a particularly hard lump of ice cuts right across his palm. The one unfortunate thing about being the winter spirit is that he has to use heat if he wants to be numb, and he's not exactly going to find a hand-warmer out here.

Jack ploughs on.  
 **  
@#£% &**&%£#@  
**  
The sunset has long since been and gone by the time Jack's done enough to settle in - two holes, just big enough to fit him and looking like one of Bunny's warren holes, and an empty, medium-sized room with smooth ice walls in the middle of it. When he lies down on the floor (he hasn't made a bed, and he doesn't think he will), he can see through the ice above him just enough to know it's night time.

Jack closes his eyes and wonders if the guardians have noticed he's gone yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear these chapter just keep getting shorter. I'll try and make the next one longer, promise :)
> 
> Yo, it's officially Christmas! ALL OF MY PRESENTS TO OTHERS ARE WRAPPED
> 
> NOW. . .
> 
>  
> 
> THE CELEBRATIONS BEGIN!
> 
> *breaks out the fizzy drinks because I'm not of legal age to drink yet*

**Author's Note:**

> I'M SORRY I HAD TO WRITE IT OKAY


End file.
